The subject matter disclosed herein relates to ordering of statistical correlated quantities. Specifically, the subject matter disclosed herein relates to ordering of statistical correlated quantities for ranking electrically conductive paths in a semiconductor device.
As structural dimensions of integrated circuits have become ever-smaller, meeting design conditions across a plurality of these devices has become more difficult. In analyzing functions of these devices, designers often look to the timing quantities (e.g., slacks) of paths through a circuit to determine which paths are most likely to affect device performance. Particularly, designers attempt to find the paths through the circuit which have the highest probability of affecting performance, i.e., being “critical.” Due to process variations across a plurality of devices, each timing quantity (i.e., slack) is a statistical distribution. That is, each timing quantity for a given path has a probability distribution indicating the path's likelihood of having such a timing performance across a plurality of devices.